Pro-choice campaigners have urged the Government to "end the hypocrisy" of sending more than 6,000 women a year overseas to have abortions.
Announcing details of a new campaign for the introduction of legal abortion services in Ireland, the chairwoman of the Irish Family Planning Association, Catherine Forde, accused successive governments of "lacking courage and leadership" by failing to deal with abortion "in a realistic and rational way".
She was speaking at a press conference in Dublin yesterday, which was disrupted by six members of Youth Defence who chanted slogans directed against the speakers.
The Pro-Life Campaign said it wished to "totally disassociate" itself from the protesters.
It was revealed at the press conference that three women had lodged a case on Monday with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) alleging their rights were being denied by the Government's failure to legislate on abortion.
Prof Ivana Bacik, spokeswoman for the newly formed Safe and Legal in Ireland campaign, said the identities of the three women would remain confidential but each had had an abortion overseas after a crisis pregnancy.
"They are from a range of ages and a range of areas in the country," she noted, adding the IFPA had provided the three women with the necessary legal research and support to allow them take this "important and groundbreaking case".
Prof Bacik said: "The grounds on which the case is being taken are very strong and we hope that this case will advance quickly through the court and will ultimately help in bringing about a change in the law on abortion.
"Travelling abroad for an abortion placed enormous emotional and financial burdens for A, B and C, the three women taking the case. The law created delays and hardship for each woman which resulted in her having a later abortion at greater risk to her health."
Prof Bacik said the women alleged breaches of four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, which was transposed into Irish law in a 2003 Act.
She noted there was another case before the Strasbourg court relating to abortion in the case of foetal anomalies, but the women's case would be the first to challenge directly the domestic ban on abortion.
Although rulings of the ECHR were not binding, Prof Bacik said: "the Government are obliged to seek to implement" whatever decision the court made.
"Ireland is a signatory to the convention on human rights. We have now incorporated the convention into domestic law through the 2003 Act."
As part of its campaign, the IFPA will facilitate a number of women who travelled overseas for abortions to attend special hearings on the issue at the European Parliament in October.
Among those attending the press conference yesterday were representatives from the Union of Students in Ireland, Dublin Well Woman Centre, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the National Women's Council.
Prof Bacik said: "We are very positive about the prospects of the success of this campaign, which is unique in that for the first time it seeks to move forward the law on abortion in Ireland from an entirely woman-centred perspective."
The IFPA said no public or taxpayers' money would be used to fund the campaign.
However, the Pro-Life Campaign said the Crisis Pregnancy Agency "must immediately review its continued funding of the IFPA, given that it is manifestly a political campaigning organisation".
